Mangaluru: The inauguration of Rachana New Office was held at Pio Mall here, on June 20.
Member of the Legislative Assembly J R Lobo and Entrepreneur Ivan Fernandes inaugurated the office by cutting the ribbon. Bishop of Mangalore Diocese Dr Aloysius D’Souza lit the traditional lamp along with other dignitaries and blessed the new office premises.
Thereafter, a stage programme was held at St Ann’s Mini Hall. President of Rachana John Monteiro welcomed the gathering. MLC Ivan D’Souza said, “Our community is not encouraging the youth to be entrepreneurs. Rachana should encourage youth to start their own business by improving their entrepreneurial skills.” Ivan further said that in the coming days, Rachana should create job opportunities for the youth. Rachana should also build a hostel in Mangaluru for the youth who come from remote areas to work in Mangaluru or pursue their education. To build a hostel, he assured full support from the government and urged to find a land where the hostel would be built.
Addressing the gathering, MLA J R Lobo said that whenever we start any business, we think only about ourselves. “We are hesitant to take everyone together when we start any business. When Rachana was started, many people supported it and today, its own office has been inaugurated. When there is an office, it is easier for people to make use of it. After we had inaugurated the entrepreneurship cell there is some development now. There was entrepreneurship earlier too but we were not seeing much development. In the Muslim community they never deposit money in the bank for interest, instead they invest money to start any business be it small or big and get benefit. But our thoughts are quite opposite. We deposit money in bank and live on the interest. We need money but we have to encourage our children to be entrepreneurs. Parents should change their mindset and allow their children to stand on their own feet. We teach our children to be competitive. In our community, many people are financially strong. They should join together to float a company. There are many investors in our community but they are hesitant to invest. If there are any good projects, like-minded people should join together and start a private limited company. In the media field our community is lagging behind. Media is a very important instrument in our hands. If we don’t think about media, our community will not get importance in the society. To be successful in the society, we need to think over three aspects. They are Media – What should be done and How to handle the media; second one is to form a big company and become share holders – One should think big and dream big; the third one is how to develop an entrepreneur. Our community has good exposure and well educated persons. We need to be strong so that we can strengthen our poor brethren in other districts.”
A booklet was released by Ivan Fernandes. Addressing the gathering NRI Entrepreneur Ivan Fernandes said, “We are very hesitant to support entrepreneurs. We want our children to become professionals; as parents we all want our children to be doctors, engineers or something great. Very rarely do you come across parents who tell their children to become entrepreneurs. Most of the time we look at entrepreneurs as those who are struggling, never have anything for themselves, have no time for their families, have no sufficient financial resources to take care of themselves or their families. The most sad part about entrepreneurs is that when they go, ask for proposals, their proposal is rejected just because they don’t have enough bank balance. The moment you say ‘entrepreneur’, they take a step back, unless and until you have achieved success or have done something great. Until then, nobody wants to know what he is struggling with, go near him, think about him.”
“Many people think that to become entrepreneurs, you need to have big ideas. But when I meet and ask successful entrepreneurs, they say ‘I don’t have any idea, I don’t know what to do’. People think unless you have an idea that can make huge money, you cannot become an entrepreneur. The truth is all big companies start with a very small idea. Google today is a very big organisation, but when they started they had a very small idea; when the internet came, they came up with the idea of how to search the internet, how to find information on the internet. Ola, Uber are other such organisations that came up with small ideas. Taxis are nothing new, they have been around for ages. Uber today is valued at USD 20 bn and Ola, which is operating only in India, was last valued at USD 2.5 bn. Ola is just a 4 year old company, started in 2011 with just two guys. What do they do? They do nothing, they don’t even own one taxi. All they do is they bring all the taxi owners together and they form a bridge between the customer and the driver in a very efficient way to provide customers with a taxi when and where they want. They ensure that the drivers get more than what they would get normally while also providing customers the service that they want at affordable prices. Ola is the third company in India to cross revenues of USD 1 bn after Flipkart and Snapdeal, and all these companies were founded after 2008. All this started from a very small idea, which goes on to say that you don’t need a lot of resources, finance to start a business. Think of a problem that has a huge impact on the society. Find a solution that can be delivered to everybody, and you can be successful just like these companies. Many people have ideas, but they are afraid of failure. We think that if we fail, everybody will think that we are a failure; when we fail, we get a lot of experience from that failure that it becomes a stepping stone to take our ideas further.”
Bishop Aloysius D’Souza’s birthday was celebrated on the occasion. The Bishop addressing the gathering said, “Our community has the crab mentality; they do not wish to see others in the community prosper. When I became the Bishop, we did not have an engineering college in Mangaluru. My wish is that my people prosper and come to the main stream. I have seen that the people of other communities are successful but our people are becoming poorer day-by-day. When I was going for home visits, many people said that we need an engineering college. So we started St Joseph’s Engineering College where we give more concessions to the students. Last year, upto Rs 4 crore was given as concession to the students. The people of our community should reach new levels.” He also congratulated Rachana for the new office. “We have genius, educated, wealthy but we do not have the courage to start any business. The people of our community are hesitant to support entrepreneurs. We have to join hands together and start our business. We need to take risks in life but our people are not ready to take risk. Through Rachana, our community will prosper and let other communities also benefit as we are involved in charity and social service.
President Konkani Sahitya Academy Roy Castelino also spoke on the occasion. Secretary of Rachana Anil Lobo delivered the vote of thanks.
